Hosting Media Bias: Evidence from the Universe of French Broadcasts, 2002-2020

About this event

What role do journalists play in slanting media content? Because media bias can crucially impact political and social outcomes, we study the relative role of journalists and owners in shaping media slant. To do so, we build a novel dataset on hosts and guests in all French radio and television shows between 2002 and 2020, and identify the political leaning (if any) of all the invited guests. First, we use the speaking time share of both politicians and politically-involved non-politician guests to measure slant. We document substantial variations in slant across channels and ownership groups. Next, we use hosts working on distinct channels belonging to different owners and show that, controlling for demand- and supply-driven bias, journalists themselves slant media content. Finally, we study how changes in ownership affect media bias in a difference-in-differences framework, and show that ownership changes trigger a decline in the broadcast time share of hosts who were working for the channel before the takeover.